Hymn To Unrest
by GinnyRules
Summary: She is a shop assistant with a dark secret, poised to emerge as the deadliest power of the age. He is young and lost and out of his depth. Tom Riddle/Hermione Granger role reversal AU ficlet.


**A/N:** I've completely lost control over this AU thing. Nightingale is giving me some trouble (but I'm working on it, guys) so apparently, I've resorted to this insanity. This is quite a short piece that is more of a collection of sketches/exercises in style than a proper story. It was inspired by a drabble written by **Mechanical Orange** on tumblr, in response to my request for Hermione as a fledgeling dark lord and Tom as a hapless student thrown into her power. The epigraph is from Edgar Allan Poe's "Dream Within A Dream." In certain passages I am also borrowing liberally from the monologue style in Angels In America. Oh and it's sort of a strong T, I suppose. No profanity or anything explicit, but sort of uncomfortable themes. What can you expect with this pairing.

Onward!

* * *

_**Hymn To Unrest**_  
_**by GR**_

_I stand amid the roar  
Of a surf-tormented shore,  
And I hold within my hand  
Grains of the golden sand-_

_O God! can I not save_  
_One from the pitiless wave?_  
_Is all that we see or seem_  
_But a dream within a dream?_

oOo

_Homenum revelio._

You board a train in half-light because you are told it will take you _on_. You have no regrets; you have been prepared, for many long years, to give your life to the cause. But something goes wrong. Some unwieldy cosmic hand reaches down and, with a casual flick, derails you from your path into oblivion. You are spinning and twisting sickeningly in the gaping maw, the gyre of space, on and on until you land on the distant shores of time, never to return. Your raft has capsized unknowable decades before the life you knew.

And it happens that you pick yourself up, limp bones and dead nerves and hollow eyes, and carry yourself onward because you must. But as the prickling in your spine signals your adjustment to a new age, shock comes biting on the heels of shock, and _she_ appears.

She is a blaze of heat lightning, an electrical storm crashing down on a calm summer's day. She emerges from an unremarkable shop in unremarkable clothes and owns every inch of the ground on which she stands. You feel you have known her in a dream—a nightmare. And you have.

She is different in your mind: weathered by the years but not diminished, greater and yet uglier in spirit. You cannot sow the pieces of her together in your mind; the fabric of her story is a quilt all torn apart. You see her eyes, they capture yours and fixate with the luxury of the unafraid. They speak of sharpness, hatred, fire, freedom. You can see in them that you belong to her, from the very first glance. She singles you out, raises you up from obscurity and applies her charms with unrelenting ardor, because she is greedy. Or perhaps it is simply that she has not collected a new plaything in so long and she can cut her teeth on your wit. You are nearly quite as clever as she is, you recognize through the haze of panic at her introduction, but the notion gives you no pleasure. You want out, you want out, you want to get away. You know you cannot hold a candle to the strength of her will. Her _pull_.

She is not beautiful in the conventional way. She is altogether more terrible than that. Enigmatic and relentless and breathtaking. You are small and frightened and you miss your phantom, other life.

You are hers.

oOo

_i am ferocity i am unbroken i am unforgiving i am the voice of the storm the shadow that blots out the night_

_i hold the keys to the kingdom i stand alone i will have power fear obedience veneration_

_there is no end no precipice no fault line i will go on forever i will rise there is no such thing as death there is only power_

_death is for the meek love kindness compassion_

_there is only power and those too weak to seek it_

oOo

"Did you kill your parents?"

"You ask impertinent questions, Tom."

"It's—I can't help being curious. I've always been that way."

"There's a difference between curiosity and foolishness."

"You're avoiding my question."

"Of course I didn't kill them. That old fool Dumbledore might have taken notice."

"Then where is your family, Hermione—"

"Tom."

"... Where is your family, my Lady?"

"I took their memories and sent them away."

"Where did you send them?"

"The location doesn't concern me. They were an unworthy stain on the world and it's best that they're gone."

"But they were your parents."

"My progenitors. They were not responsible for my skill or my success."

"Is that why you hate Muggles? Because they remind you of where you come from, where you started?"

"Two impertinent questions in one day. Tread carefully, Tom. I might take it into my head to punish you for this."

"I don't think you will."

"Is that so?"

"No. You need me. I'm Slytherin's heir. I can tell you about your future."

"My precious Tom. And you really think this will stop me from acting as I choose, _when_ I please? You may not be as intelligent as I'd thought."

"I think deep down you agree with my way of thinking much more than you'd admit."

"A dangerous assumption."

"I grew up in an orphanage. I know what it's like to live without magic; to feel miserable and wrong and out of place, _all the time_. I also know it's not reason enough to take out your rage on the whole world. You could do so much more."

"I think you had best keep your pretty mouth shut."

"Power comes at a price. Didn't Slytherin himself used to say that? You have a responsibility—"

"_Imperio_. Ah, yes, much better. Now why don't you just promise me you'll show a bit more respect in the future, hmm? Go on, I'm waiting. What's that? _No?_ Well, well, I'm impressed. You've got some fight in you. "

"Stop—can't—"

"Yes, it hurts, doesn't it? The more you fight, the worse it gets. Try and think about that the next time you open your mouth. _Finite_."

oOo

_Ennervate._

You trail along in her wake, through dark alleys and darker mansions, through the shop where she works, day after day as the moon and sun chase one another across the sky. You read and learn and discover, rejecting her tuition but thriving in the aura of her power. She watches you indulgently, as one watches a child struggling with trembling fingers to etch letters into the sand. And always, that proprietary sort of glow in her eyes, because you are hers to toy with and mold and torment as she sees fit.

You find her one day stumbling through a fireplace, sallow and trembling. Gravely ill. Her pallor should indicate she is on the very threshold of death, but you know it cannot be. She is engraved in your memory as an old woman raising armies and marching to war against your kin, many years from now. You tend to her, laying her down on soft pale sheets and mopping her brow. Speaking nonsense words of comfort that taste of ash in your mouth. You do not want to comfort her but you do; it goes against your nature to turn away from that which is frail and helpless.

When she wakes you ask—you are always asking, searching, striving, it is your fatal flaw—what has happened.

"Power comes at a price," she quotes back to you.

It is then you begin to collate the pieces. Bile rises in your throat because you know. _Horcrux_. You gave your life to help your friends erase the traces of her tattered soul she scattered around the world. What you could not have suspected was the toll of dark magic on a body. For days, week, she is skin and bones, weaving in and out of delirium. Her followers cannot know if it: you shudder to think where the knowledge would lead in their hands. So you watch over her instead. You listen as she murmurs in her sleep, distant memories of childhood fever. Pleading for a keeper, a caring hand to understand her power rather than to recoil in fear when the curtains catch fire for no reason or the windows crash shut without a breeze.

You could leave. You could run and vanish and melt into the gathering darkness that prowls the city streets. You could, but you do not. You stay.

oOo

_i have endured i have triumphed lived surpassed i have_

_him_

_i have him_

_he is delicate vivacious brilliant he is there in the dark he is there_

_he has talent without direction he has skill without hatred to hate is divine it is pure he is impure _

_we are all impure we are all all all_

_alone_

_to have power is to be alone i am endurance_

_i am triumph i live i surpass i have power i have_

_him_

oOo

"Hold out your arm."

"Why?"

"Shall I use my wand, Tom?"

"Go ahead if you must. I'll ask again: why?"

"You do try my patience. Hold out your arm so that I can take a little blood. I require it for a potion."

"I'm not helping you brew anything dark."

"Name me Wenlock's precepts of magical entropy, Tom. And while you do it, hold out your arm."

"Sprigg's translation states that magic in its natural state seeks the outlet best suited to allow practice of its full potential—_ah_."

"It's only a small cut. Hold still."

"Will you heal it, at least?"

"I rather like you a little bloodied. Roughness around the edges suits you, if only you'd take advantage of it."

"Marcellus's translation disagrees with Sprigg's, you know."

"There is no other translation."

"It was written the year I was born. It states that magic in its natural state attracts those whose potential reverberates most with the intent of each individual spell or incantation."

"Your lies are transparent, Tom. Sprigg's is the true interpretation. There is no right or wrong way to practice magic; only power."

"If I'm lying, look inside my head. Marcellus's text is widely accepted. Darkness breeds darkness and light breeds light. You don't want to face it because it would mean that everything you've done so far has been needless."

"You must be very brave to speak to me this way. Don't tell me you're a Gryffindor."

"I'm a Slytherin. That changes nothing. The girl you killed, all those years ago, because she caught you brewing Polyjuice potion to try to adopt a Pureblood body—"

"There is a difference between bravery and idiocy."

"The werewolf you outed and had thrown out of the school—"

"Ah, Tom. You could be such an asset to me. I do hate to hurt you. But I _will _do it."

"You keep saying that. Yet here we are."

oOo

_Impedimenta._

You are in thrall to her. How can you not be? How can you possibly resist?

You are all that is incorruptible, known for your fortitude. You have always been a force unto yourself, from a solitary childhood in squalor to your transformation upon arriving at a castle where magic is real. There a string of cold logic led you to the inevitable conclusion that the Dark lady's campaign for so-called purity was folly. Haphazardly you fell into an alliance with others like yourself, great, dead wizards and witches and a boy with a peculiar scar—only to find that uprising suited you. It is in your nature to stay two steps ahead.

Ahead of _her_.

But she is different here and now. Not yet mangled beyond recognition. She comes to you in the late hours with a look in her eyes that belongs only to you.

How can you resist the boundless vitality of her, the taste and touch and sweat, the warmth and friction and the marks left on your skin by her nails and teeth? You have always been quiet, never crying as a child, never sniveling, but with her you will be anything. You are gasps and hoarse breaths and you will say anything she wants.

My Lady.

The weight of it is lead in your stomach. You know you are paying court to the devil. She is intoxication; she is all that you fear but all that you have. You know you have to get away before you burry yourself in it past the point of no return.

oOo

_Priori incantatem._

You close your eyes and see the future—your past—a blur of now and then with indistinct colors and sharp edges. The halls of Hogwarts bathed in the golden light of autumn. The dry, quiet expanse of the library, with a tingle of magic in the air. The cloak of night covering the grounds.

You open your eyes and she is there, holding a basin of swirling silver cloud. She pulls threads of memory from your temples and offers you a voyage home, a brief escape that you can see and hear and smell.

Why does she do it?

She tells you, _Your attention is divided_. She tells you, _Come back to me with a mind unclouded_.

You are slow and careful that night as you kiss the tips of her fingers, the insides of her wrists. She closes her eyes and something in her manner makes you think that perhaps she does not mind, she is content.

Why does she look at you the way she does?

You are cursed to wear your father's face, and you know that the ivory skin, the symmetry, the eyes whose gaze you avoid when passing a mirror, hold a superficial appeal. But what of the ideals you insist upon, so repellent to her? What of those? Could it be that her paralyzing fears—that which make her sink desperate claws into polluted power to keep the world at bay, to keep them from seeing—are capable of being weathered down with sufficient determination?

It is dangerous to think this way. Not only because you cannot afford to entertain the idea of altering the future, but because sometimes, fleetingly, you can see her eyes flash red.

oOo

"Tell me about your life, Tom."

"You've already seen it all in my head."

"No, tell me about... the things you retained most. The things that impressed you. Your thoughts."

"I'll never forget the moment I learned magic existed. Nothing else in my life will ever probably feel quite the same as that."

"Surely you must have had some idea? You can speak to snakes..."

"I suppose I thought everyone could. I never had friends to compare notes with. They taunted me for the books I read."

"Well. Friends are only weakness, after all."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss companionship. It can open your eyes."

"Yes, that it can."

"What does that mean?"

"Don't trouble yourself about it. Never mind."

oOo

_Avada Kedavra._

She summons you and you dread what you will find when you arrive at the manor in the midnight hour. You are not disappointed. The poor, foolish old woman with the treasure trove of ancient artifacts lies dead on her own drawing room floor. Hermione stalks about the room at a brisk pace, uncharacteristically agitated.

_What have you done?_

She does not answer you. Her wand swishes through the air, etching note sin flawless black script on the very walls. She likes to take notes; they help her think in times of stress. She catalogs the items in the room, clutching to her chest a gold locket and cup.

You know that you can no longer pretend. The time for blindness is over. Your heart hammers in your chest, you ache for her already. Get yourself under control.

You move to take the aged elf out of the room to safety. She tells you no, no, elves are powerful, special, this one can be of use. You will have to take the treasures home instead while she sorts the elf's memory. An absence of doubt in her tone, or at least of mistrust outright. You are staggered when she presses the locket and cup into your hands and motions for you to go. What is there to do now?

You do not tremble. Your eyes and hands and voice must be steady. You nod and there is a roaring in your ears because it is goodbye, but she does not know it yet. She turns away too soon. You falter, then leave the room. One foot in front of the other. Keep going.

oOo

_freefall_

_i am victorious i am surging i have everything_

_i have everything i need as i forge into waters untested magic untried as i expand_

_as i expand to we_

_we are victorious surging glory we have everything i have every piece every prize_

_i am poised to emerge to rise to rule i am i am i am_

_i am his_

oOo

_Ascendio._

You take the treasures and melt into the night. You know the map of London inside out, but there is nowhere to go, nowhere she will not look. There are tears on your face. One foot in front of the other. Keep going.

You imagine you can feel it when she realizes you are gone. Like a knife digging deep inside, cruel and cold. But that is absurd, a flight of fancy. You go on and on, Apparating and stumbling and running. You come to a halt at the edge of the sea and breathe in jagged red-hot breaths that tear your insides to ribbons. The waves are indifferent. They know nothing of your grief. Watching them, you know what to do.

You step onto a dock the following morning with your face hooded, ticket in hand. The ship you board pitches and sways and you feel sicker than you have all your life, but you know she will not look for you here, traveling the Muggle way. You have no address, no leads, only a pair of names are written on a piece of paper in your pocket. But you are clever and determined and it will be enough, because it must. You stand alone at the prow and watch and wait for land. Not today, but perhaps tomorrow, you will arrive in Australia and find the proof of her folly, the man and woman who raised her. You will find a way to bring them back, and you will make it matter; the future is nothing to you now. The future will be better this way. You will make it matter.

And then you will return to her.

* * *

**A/N:** Ascendio isn't actually a book canon spell, if I recall correctly. But I felt like using it. So. I hope you gleaned at least some amusement from this piece. I'd love to hear from you, so if you enjoyed it or if you want to ask me what I was smoking, drop me a line in the reviews. Cheers!


End file.
